The Daily Beast’s Dan Lyons and USA Today called out Facebook and its (now-former) public relations agency, Burson-Marsteller, for trying to hide its hand while asking reporters to look into negative reports about Google’s efforts at social media.
When one blogger asked who was Burson-Marsteller’s client, the PR firm wouldn’t say.
The PRSA Code of Ethics calls this is a no-no: “Reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented.”
The PR firm said in a brief statement that the incident wasn’t usual operating procedure, noting that “we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients.” You won’t see the word “apologize” in the statement. It did not fire the people involved (both former journalists) and said it would remind its workers that transparency is key.
The Daily Beast says either Facebook or the PR firm is lying about who decided not to tell reporters that Facebook had hired the company.
The Chartered Institute of Public Relations said such activities are, increasingly rare, noting that taking on a competitor “worked best when done through ‘open dialogue’.”
Slate’s Jack Schaffer says people should not make too big a deal out of what happened, but not because it was a tiny breach of ethics:
In a perfect world, PR firms should always identify their client whenever whispering or speaking loudly, so five demerits and three days of timeout for Burson-Marsteller. But reporters are not innocent, naïve, delicate flowers. Every reporter approached by PR firms knows that the primary focus of PR firms is to push lies. If PR people were being paid to push the truth, they’d be called reporters.
And PC Magazine’s John Dvorak, who has been writing about technology for decades, says this is nothing new. He predicts that we can expect more of this as PR firms and companies try to pitch bloggers who may not be as sophisticated about such things.